132 POPULAR CULTURE IN KARNATAKA

This is her advice to her calf:

"Go not to the ends to graze,
Nor go too near the hill;
There the cruel tiger watches
Stay thou well within the herd."

Then:

The cow caressed the calf and said,
"You lose your dam to-day, my young one;
The tiger's mouth I go to enter
The time we owed each other's run/'

The calf remonstrates:

Then to the mother said the calf
"Why my mother should you go?
Wherefore should you make me orphan?
Stay, mother, where you are."

And the cow replies:

"Truth is father, truth is mother,

Truth is friend and all relations;

God will not approve, I know,

A life that breaks a promise made.
"I will not break the word I gave,

I will not think dishonest thought:

True to promise I shall go,

And shall not swerve from this resolve."

The last scene is thus described: The cow having;
come and offered her flesh,

The tiger heard the offer made,
His eyes overflowed with tears;
And he thought, "If I eat this mother
Sure, God will not approve."
And said, "You are my sister
What gain I slaying you?"
Which having said, the tiger-king
Straightway lay down and died.

And the poem ends with the usual benediction.